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18 thoughts on “Naked Under Clothes”

Regardless, I think it does a good job of expressing a desire people have to be free.

Specifically, the poem does a good job of expressing a desire a person has to be free from clothes: To be naked: To be free to be their “true self,” with no barriers.

The only concern I have, that this poem made me think of, is this:

That a person will turn their body into an idol: That a person will see being naked as something they have to do, not something they choose to do. God created all things and called them “very good.” (Genesis 1:31) But it is He/She alone — and not what He/She has created — that we are to serve.

I apologize if I came across as preachy. This poem is good, and it has given me a lot to think about.

Things can become part of us without being worshipped. Music is like that for me; if I couldn’t play, an aspect of me would be lost. In the same way, if I cannot be naked regularly, my emotional health suffers. Yet, as the poem describes,

“Things can become part of us without being worshipped. Music is like that for me; if I couldn’t play, an aspect of me would be lost. In the same way, if I cannot be naked regularly, my emotional health suffers.”

I understand now.

And I agree: Things can become a part of us without being worshiped. Everyone has something that keeps them emotionally healthy.

From what you’ve told me, for you it is music, and the feeling of freedom that comes with being naked.

For me, it is writing. If I couldn’t write — if I didn’t have that outlet for my thoughts and feelings — I fear that my emotional health would suffer.

One thing we would all be wise to consider: it is societal conditioning in our youth that makes us ashamed to be naked and/or to associate sex with nudity per se.
Who amongst us who has ever been around small children can say that they have not seen children readily run around naked with a parent chasing after them trying to get clothes on them?
A Child has no shame in their naked body; their shame comes when Adults repeatedly chastise them for going without clothes. We are born with the inherent desire to be naked. Not just in the privacy of our homes, but anywhere we go when there is warmth and sunshine. Thus it was in Eden when Original Humans had a CLOSE walk with God; and, thus were we MEANT to live our entire lives by our Creators. It was only when Adam and Eve attempted to cover their loins with aprons that they began to hide and separate themselves from the Creators [and they hid NOT because they were ‘ashamed,’ but because they were AFRAID (of being punished for disobedience)].
When I am “naked and unashamed,” and do NOT obsess over/focus on the sexual aspects of nudity, I always feel I am closer to my Creators’ Glory and Presence. Think about this: “GOD” is pure spirit, ergo, Eternally Naked. Spirit can not be “clothed” except in Glory and Righteousness; NO covering other than that would be worthy of GOD; and, NO covering is truly worthy of covering OUR bodies which are the Divine Image of our Creators.

In this imperfect world, there will always be shame — the need to cover up.

For example: If a man lives his whole life naked, he will still blush and/or cover himself with his hands or a towel if someone walks in on him unexpectedly while he is in the bathroom. The reason the man does this isn’t because he sees his naked body as shameful — it’s because he doesn’t want to be seen as less of a person (be seen as an object) because he is naked.

When a person wears clothes, they are covering up the parts of their body that could cause them to be seen as a means to an end, not as the human beings they are.

For example: When a woman wears a bra, she is implicitly saying “Don’t look at my breasts. Look at my face. See me as a human being, not as means of attaining sexual pleasure.”

There is nothing inherently evil about the naked human body. God created everything, including the body, and said it is “very good.” (Genesis 1:31) But, because of the fallen world we live in, we can’t live exactly like Adam and Eve lived — naked without shame. (Genesis 2:25)

But, I believe that all desires ultimately come from God, who is the fulfillment of desire. You have the desire to be naked for a reason, and may that desire draw you closer to God. The peace, joy, and freedom that comes with being naked is a preview of peace, joy, and freedom that God wants to give you in Heaven.

Hmmm… If someone walks in while I’m using the restroom, whether I covered up would depend on who it was. If it were a stranger, I might cover up out of courtesy. Or not; if a stranger barges in, he shouldn’t complain about what he sees. *lol* But if it were a long-time friend who was also a naturist, I would likely just continue my business.

You mentioned bras. Yes, they cover, but most of them also enhance the breasts’ natural shape. They “cover,” but not really. Many women who aren’t nudists choose not to wear them, for health reasons (Look up the links between bras and breast cancer) or just to be comfortable. So many reactions that we think innate actually grow from early, intensive conditioning. Once we recondition ourselves–and for me that was remarkably easy–all those “innate” reactions disappear.

Though I am not a nudist, as someone who has written about nudism, the reasons why people go naked, and the inherent goodness of the human body, one thing I’ve, for lack of a better term, struggled with, is finding a balance between the joy that comes with being naked and the need to live one’s life for more than the sake of experiencing joy.

Everyone is naked at least once. For example: A person is naked in order to bathe. And being naked can be a liberating feeling that gives a person joy and inner peace — all that a person physically is, is laid bare for all to see: there are no more secrets, no more walls, only the truth, in all its beauty and imperfection.

But: God wants us to live our lives for more than that. God doesn’t want a person’s life to consist of only, for example, feeling the breeze between one’s legs or the sun on one’s skin. God wants us to change the world for the better and that means, at times, sacrificing the freedom, joy, and peace that comes with being naked in order to share with people the freedom, joy, and peace that comes from God.

When they were “naked without shame,” Adam and Eve knew they were more than their naked body — they knew their nudity is not what defined them.

And I worry that nudists — people who, because they’re nudists, are defined by the choice they make to go naked — could think “My naked body is who I am.” And that’s not true: A child of God is who a nudist — who every human being — is.

Of course most of us indeed want to make the world a better place. And we see acceptance of nudity as one powerful way to do just that. We speak of the deep reconnection with Creation, the equality that nakedness may evoke (no differences in the status that clothing symbolizes when no one is clothed!), and the deep symbolism of coming naked to God in prayer; and we naturally wish for the world to embrace such experiences. Yet we also recognize that most of the world is not ready for this, and that if we strip on the streets we may lose our freedom. Indeed, few folks are as aware as we are of the dangers of being naked in the wrong place at the wrong time! But many of us, especially the Christians among us, can get almost evangelical in our belief that naturism is one big way to improve our world.

As you said, a lot of the world isn’t ready for the experience of living without clothes. But for the people who do find going naked to be a meaningful, thought-provoking experience, I believe God is using those peoples’ desire to be naked as a means of communicating with them.

You mention the symbolism of coming naked to God in prayer. I believe praying while naked is a beautiful thing. In prayer, a person lays bare all their thoughts and feelings — a person says to God “This is what I’m feeling and thinking…” And when a person does that while naked, they are not only showing God all that they are mentally, but all that they are physically, too.

I write about nudism because I fear that nudists are people who are swept under the rug by society in general in Christians in particular: None of my fellow Catholics, it seemed, wanted to talk about nudism, so I started talking about it because I thought “It must be acknowledged that there are people who go naked. To not acknowledge such people is not what Jesus would do.”